In 1938, Samuel Barber's "Adagio for Strings" and "Essay for Orchestra" made their world debuts on the NBC Blue radio network as they were performed by the NBC Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Arturo Toscanini.

In 1940, President Franklin D. Roosevelt won an unprecedented third term in office as he defeated Republican challenger Wendell L. Willkie.

In 1942, American showman George M. Cohan died in New York at age 64.

In 1968, Richard M. Nixon won the presidency, defeating Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey and American Independent candidate George C. Wallace.

In 1974, Ella T. Grasso was elected governor of Connecticut, becoming the first woman to win a gubernatorial office without succeeding her husband.

In 1987, Supreme Court nominee Douglas H. Ginsburg admitted using marijuana several times in the 1960s and 70s, calling it a mistake. (Ginsburg ended up withdrawing his nomination.)

In 1990, Rabbi Meir Kahane (meh-EER' kah-HAH'-nuh), the Brooklyn-born Israeli extremist, was shot to death at a New York hotel. (Egyptian native El Sayyed Nosair (el sah-EED' no-sah-EER') was convicted of the slaying in federal court.)

In 1992, Malice Green, a black motorist, died after he was struck in the head 14 times with a flashlight by a Detroit police officer, Larry Nevers, outside a suspected crack house. (Nevers and his partner, Walter Budzyn, were found guilty of second-degree murder, but the convictions were overturned; they were later convicted of involuntary manslaughter.)

In 2009, a shooting rampage at the Fort Hood Army post in Texas left 13 people dead; Maj. Nidal Hasan, an Army psychiatrist, was charged with premeditated murder and attempted murder. (Hasan was convicted by a military jury and sentenced to death in August 2013.)

Ten years ago: President Bush signed a bill outlawing the procedure known by its critics as "partial-birth abortion"; less than an hour later, a federal judge in Nebraska issued a temporary restraining order against the ban. (In 2007, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act.) Green River serial killer Gary Leon Ridgway pleaded guilty to strangling 48 women over two decades, most of them near Seattle. (Ridgway was sentenced to life in prison. In 2011, he pleaded guilty to a 49th murder.) Democratic presidential hopeful Howard Dean apologized for urging Democrats to court Southern whites who displayed Confederate flags on their pickup trucks. Bobby Hatfield of the musical duo the Righteous Brothers died in Kalamazoo, Mich., at age 63.

Five years ago: One day after being elected president, Barack Obama began filling out his new administration, selecting Illinois Rep. Rahm Emanuel to be White House chief of staff. A case of postelection nerves on Wall Street sent the Dow industrials plunging nearly 500 points. Two men were shot to death in St. Johns, Ariz.; the 8-year-old son of one of the victims was arrested. (The boy later pleaded guilty to negligent homicide in the death of his father's roommate; prosecutors dropped charges in the father's death as part of a plea deal.) Literary critic John Leonard died in New York at age 69. Bollywood movie director B.R. Chopra died in Mumbai at age 94.

One year ago: On the eve of the presidential election, President Barack Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney held rallies seven miles apart in Columbus, Ohio, as two polls showed Obama with a one-percentage-point lead over Romney. The Supreme Court ruled a South Carolina sheriff's office could be held liable for attorneys' fees for stopping abortion protesters who wanted to hold up signs showing aborted fetuses.